Date of Announcement: 1989
Area: 1759 Km2
Located less than two hours away from Cairo, Wadi El Rayan is one of Egypt’s most famous nature reserves. Named after King El Rayan Ibn El Walid who had lived in the area with his army, the nature reserve is part of El Fayoum governorate and located about 75 km away from El Fayoum city.
Wadi Al-Hitan in Egypt’s Western Desert is the only place in the world where the skeletons of families of archaic whales can be seen in their original geological and geographic setting of the shallow nutrient-rich
bay of a sea of some 40 million years ago. The fossils and sediments of different periods and levels reveal many millions of years of life and are valuable indications of the palaeoecologic conditions, of Eocene vertebrate and invertebrate life and the evolution of these ancestors of modern whales. Remarkably, two species still had small hind limbs, feet and toes.
